Bleak (14 page)

The second I hear Lester’s voice, I know. It’s all there in the pitch of his hello, an entire universe of disappointment couched in a single syllable.

Bad news is never delivered; it’s always conveyed.

“The studio passed. They didn’t like the script,” he says, his voice soft with sympathy. “The project is dead.”

The news hits me in the gut, a sucker-punch straight to the stomach. I can’t breathe.

When I don’t say anything, Lester continues. “I still have high hopes for
Jarndyce,
and I’m eager to take it out again as soon as the option lapses.”

My head begins to ache as I force air into my lungs. It makes no difference; I still feel sick.

“The climate isn’t the same, of course,” he adds. “There’s a lot more material like this circulating now, and
The Hanging Judge at Midnight
is going to be a problem. Before it wasn’t far enough along to cause a conflict, but people might take the attitude of wait and see, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I just want you to be prepared.”

Closing my eyes, I clutch the phone in my both hands. He wants me to be prepared. What a joke. “I don’t understand,” I say.

“All right. What can I clarify?” he asks, his usual matter-of-factness reasserting itself as he reverts to the superagent he is.

I struggle to think clearly. At the moment, not a single thing in the whole entire world makes sense; it’s all a glaring Day-Glo jumble of lost opportunity.

“What about Lloyd?” I ask, after a long silence, meaning, What about the party? What about Moxie? What about the sexy new edition of
J&J
? What about the buzz? What about the IMDB entry? What about Chancery’s grand plans? What about all the promises he made?

Which is really all to say, What about me?

Predictably, Lester answers only the question that was asked. “When a studio passes on a project, a producer has the option of taking it elsewhere. That won’t happen in this case for two reasons. One, the script is worth a half million dollars so whatever studio takes it on would have to first buy the script from the old studio—this is done for copyright reasons—then invest another half million in a rewrite. It’s very unlikely a studio would do that for a project that’s already been rejected. Second, Lloyd has a deal with Arcadia, which he needs to protect. All his contacts left with the old regime, so it’s as though he’s starting from scratch. Trying to set up the project somewhere else would only offend his new bosses. Now, that isn’t to say he wouldn’t team up with a partner if one approached him. It’s simply that he won’t expend any energy in the next six weeks looking for someone. Lloyd’s done with
Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
”

Although I hear every word of Lester’s long speech, the only thing that penetrates my stunned brain is the sentence “Lloyd’s done with
Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
” It repeats in my head like a security announcement in an airport. It has that same note of detached urgency.

I block it out. I have to. It takes up so much room in my mind I can’t think.
Lloyd’s done with
Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
Lloyd’s done with
Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

The truth is, Lloyd’s done with me.

I’ve never felt so abandoned in my entire life.

Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and sort through the rest of the information. There has to be some scrap of hope I can cling to. “Would the script necessarily need a half-million-dollar rewrite? I thought it was good.”

“It has problems. Nobody really likes it,” he says.

A hot spurt of anger surges through me as I latch onto a genuine grievance. I might have dug my own grave, but here’s a concrete example of Lester handing me the shovel. “But you told me they did. You said they liked the script.”

He doesn’t bother responding to this. What he said or didn’t say doesn’t concern him. All he deals with are the facts as they exist in this moment. He doesn’t reexamine the past or project into the future. “I know this one’s a heartbreaker, but I’m hopeful something else will come along. We haven’t submitted to TV yet and pilot season is coming up. It’s a huge disappointment but that’s the way it sometimes goes. It’s an up–and-down business. But don’t lose heart,” he adds, the sympathy back in his voice for the time being. “You’re a wonderful writer, and this is no reflection on the quality of the material.”

Somehow I know he’s said these exact same words to every client he’s ever had. We’re all wonderful writers, and it’s never a reflection on the quality of the material.

“I’ll call you when I hear anything,” he says. “Take care, Ricki, and don’t hesitate to call if you have any more questions.”

And just like that he’s gone, without even waiting for me to say good-bye, and I’m alone with the fading shadow of something that used to exist.

No, I’ve never felt so abandoned in my entire life.

I take to the couch.

For two weeks, I curl up on my Jennifer Convertible and read trashy novels by Nora Roberts, Rosmunde Pilcher, Jacqueline Susann, Jilly Cooper, Danielle Steel, Harold Robbins, Jackie Collins, Sidney Sheldon, Judith Krantz, Dominick Dunne, Ivana Trump, Stella Cameron, Maeve Binchy, Olivia Goldsmith, Colleen McCullough, Victoria Holt, Susan Howard, Grace Metalious and Susan Isaacs.

As soon as I finish one book, I throw it across the floor and reach for another.
Peyton Place
is followed by
Rage of Angels,
which is followed by
Wanderlust, First Wives Club
and
An Inconvenient Woman,
then
The Pirate, Players
and
Princess Daisy.
Having read them all in my misspent use, I’m vaguely familiar with the stories, and when Audrey Discoll has a miscarriage while Charlie’s in Cairo spying on General Rommel, I know it will happen a second before it does. This makes me feel strangely clairvoyant.

For the first time in 984 days, I stop counting the days. Without the numbers, time loses meaning. Day bleeds into night and into day again as I lie there wrapped in a lamb’s wool throw from Crate & Barrel, surrounded by everything I need—water, food, books, dental floss. I don’t get up except to pee, brush my teeth, sign for deliveries from Amazon and prepare meals.

I survive on a steady diet of microwave popcorn. Amazon has thirty-five different types: Newman’s Own with Butter, Newman’s Own with Light Butter, Newman’s Own Unsalted, Pop Secret Homestyle, Pop Secret Extra Butter, Pop Secret White Cheddar, Pop Secret Yellow Cheddar, Pop Secret Jumbo Pop Butter, India Tree Paloma Dorada, India Tree Paloma de Colores, Jolly Time Blast O’ Butter, Orville Redenbacher’s Movie Theater Butter, Orville Redenbacher’s Tender White, Orville Redenbacher’s Kettel Corn, Orville Redenbacher’s Pour Over Cheddar, Orville Redenbacher’s SmartPop with Butter, Orville Redenbacher’s SmartPop with Movie Theater Butter, Orville Redenbacher’s Sweet ’n’ Buttery, Orville Redenbacher’s Ultimate Butter, Orville Redenbacher’s Corn on the Cob, Orville Redenbacher’s Butter Light, Orville Redenbacher’s Old-Fashioned Butter, Black Jewel Natural, Black Jewel with Butter, Black Jewel Kettle Korn, Act II Movie Theatre Butter Pop ’n Serve, Act II 94% Fat-Free Butter, Act II 94% Fat-Free Kettle Corn, Robert’s American Gourmet Zen, Dave’s Gourmet Insanity Popcorn, Bearitos Organic No Oil Added, Ass Kickin’ Habanero, Pop Weaver Butter, Pop Weaver Extra Butter, Pop Weaver Butter Light and Pop Weaver Kettle Corn.

I try them all.

Redenbacher’s SmartPop with Movie Theater Butter is my favorite—it is sufficiently greasy to re-create the actual cinema experience—followed closely by Jolly Time Blast o’ Butter. Pop Secret Yellow Cheddar is inedible, and the point of kettle corn escapes me completely.

I order one token Jiffy Pop to make popcorn the old-fashioned way, but I almost burn down the apartment when I forget to watch it. There’s a subtle but significant difference between stovetop cooking and microwaving, and it’s clearly worth remembering.

Luckily, I manage to stop the aggressive buzz of the smoke alarm before anyone notices. The last thing I want to do is attract attention. I want to be left alone to luxuriate in my misery. Carrie calls 10 times and leaves increasingly apprehensive messages. “I’ve checked all the area hospitals,” she says, “so I know you’re fine. Unless you were admitted as a Jane Doe because they found your body in a ditch off the freeway and they have no idea who you are. Oh, God. I should alert the police. If you’re not lying in the hospital with amnesia, call me right now.”

Mom also leaves concerned messages, but her only worry is the progress of my job hunt. “Ricki, honey, I don’t have your new work number. Did you forget to give it to me? I know you must have one by now, since we sent out so many résumés and you’re so qualified. There’s no rush. Your father and I are away this weekend. Oh, and call your sister. She thinks you’re lying dead in a ditch somewhere.”

Everyone else leaves me alone.

My literary agent, Julie, sends me an e-card in which a darling little house with a candy cane chimney expels heart-shaped pink smoke and Hello Kitty floats down on a fluffy white cloud. The message reads, “We’ll get ’em next time, kiddo!”

I delete it immediately and stop checking e-mail.

I miss an appointment with John but he doesn’t call to follow up. Harry cancels our plans for an Oscar marathon at the AMC Century City—pay for one movie, see them all. Although his frequent last-minute rescheduling usually bothers me, this time I’m relieved. I can’t deal with explanations or kindly sympathetic murmurs or reflexive upbeat bromides. Things don’t happen for a reason and I’m sure it’s not all for the best.

There’s nothing good about this situation, and I don’t want people trying to make me believe there is.

My entire future hinged on
J&J
and now it’s over.

I have no future.

Reaching for another novel, I snag
The Valley of the Dolls.
I haven’t read it since I was fifteen but something about the story strikes me now as deeply profound. I feel a kinship with Anne Welles, the misguided heroine from a small New England town who winds up addicted to prescription pills, one of the inevitable many who climbs the mountain of success to such heights that the air is too thin to breathe. Writes Susann in the prologue, “Anne Welles had never meant to start the climb.”

I never meant to start the climb either.

Level-headed and practical, I didn’t set out to take Hollywood by storm. I never planned on writing a novel that would be optioned by Lloyd Chancellor and turned into a movie starring Moxie Bernard. I’m a paralegal. I spend my life being shit on by lawyers. I don’t believe in the essential goodness of mankind or happy endings. Life is repetition; it’s the same document photocopied a few million times.

I know better than to dream.

But even the most hard-hearted cynic wouldn’t be impervious to a glamorous Hollywood party thrown in her honor to celebrate the relaunch of her book with a gushing quote from Moxie Bernard.

I defy anyone not to have her head turned by that.

Tears well up and spill over as memories from the party come flooding back, that sharp shot of optimism I felt while signing books, the inevitability of the future. Of course we’re making a movie, I’d thought.

Of course we’re not.

That too seems inevitable now.

Of the one percent of books that actually make it to holy filmdom, a vast majority are already best sellers: your Stephenie Meyers, your Stephen Kings, your J.K. Rowlings. It was absurd—a monumental act of absurd conceit—to believe, whatever the provocation, that I’d be one of the select few.

Numbed by the pain, my eyes drooping from fatigue and the rigors of self-reflection, I lay my head against the pillow and extend my legs. My back hurts from being curled in a ball for hours on end, and my entire body cries out for a good, thorough stretching. Ignoring both, I drift off into sleep, my grip loosening as
The Valley of the Dolls
tumbles to the floor.

That night, I dream Anne Welles tells Lyon Burke, the cheating, lying, good-for-nothing love of her life, to take a hike. Then she kicks the Seconal and Nembutal and starts her own successful modeling agency, where she helps other beautiful woman from small towns avoid the pitfalls of fame.

She saves herself.

Just like in the movies.

Simon breaks into my apartment carrying a bag full of voodoo dolls.

“It’s not breaking and entering if you have a key,” he says and holds up the one for my front door. “It’s just entering, and you can’t get in trouble for that.”

Amazed, I stare at him from my nest of books, a bowl of popcorn in my lap and a Liquid Lightening energy drink in my hand ($15 instant rebate from Amazon when you buy forty-nine dollars’ worth). Even though I’m fully covered in sweats, I pull the blanket up to my chin, feeling curiously exposed.

“Where’d you get that?” I ask, but I already know the answer. I can’t believe the super would hand it over to anyone who asked. Maybe I can sue him for invasion of privacy or wrongful embarrassment. I can just imagine what I look like. I smooth my hand over my frizzy rat’s nest but it’s no use. My hair is sticking out in every direction.

He clears a path through the Amazon boxes to my dining room table, where he drops the key. “Your sister.”

“It’s positively criminal for the su—” I break off my tirade at the words sink in. “My sister?”

“She was worried so she asked me to look in on you. Apparently you’ve been in a deep freeze for two weeks. So she FedExed her spare key. You forgot to get it back,” he explains, upending the tote bag onto my table. Eight white dolls with blank faces tumble out. They’re folksy and creepy.

“But you don’t know my sister,” I say.

He digs a case of markers out of his back pocket. “We met on the elevator. She looks exactly like you so I introduced myself. She tracked me down yesterday thought RentLA.com. Very resourceful. I like that. Is she dating someone?”

Annoyed, I push the blanket to the side and stand up. I don’t know what I should do first—ball out my sister or put my hair in a ponytail. Vanity wins.

“Yes, she’s dating someone, unfortunately,” I call out from the bathroom. “But she lives in New York.”

“So does my cousin. They’d be great together. Are you sure she and this guy are solid?”

I take a quick detour to my bedroom and change my T-shirt. The one I’m wearing is covered in greasy butter stains. Sadly, the only napkins Amazon sells are the sanitary kind.

My feeble mind can’t take thoughts of Glenn at this difficult time, so I ignore his question and return to the more pressing topic. “Listen, I still don’t get what you’re doing here,” I say, coming out of the bedroom feeling marginally more human.

Simon draws the last of my window shades, blocking out all natural light. It’s a very strange act. Usually when you’re rousted from your den of depression by a cheerful savior, he opens the windows to let in the fresh air. It’s a symbolic act.

“I’m here to cajole you out of your blues.” He meets my gaze across the dining room table. “I know about movie deal.”

Amazingly, it’s like a punch to the stomach—again. “How?”

“Your agent is friends with your sister, remember? Julie called Carrie to see how you were doing when you didn’t respond to her e-mail. I know it sucks, but you’ve got to think of these things when you’re going into deep freeze. Otherwise annoying neighbors wind up in your living room,” he says with a wink.

His cheeriness is more than I can handle. Maybe in a few days I’ll be able to field winks but not right now. “I appreciate your stopping by, really, but I’m fine. I’ll call Carrie and tell her that right away.”

Simon looks around the room, taking it all in: the novels, the Liquid Lightening cans, the packing slips, the congealed popcorn kernels sitting at the bottom of empty plastic bowls. He shakes his head. “No, you are definitely not fine.”

The blush starts at my toes and creeps up my body. “Really, I’m—”

“You went with books,” he says, squatting to look through the pile. He picks up
Players
by Jilly Cooper, glances at the cover of a man’s hand on a woman’s butt and smirks. “A good choice. I did DVDs. I watched every episode ever of
The Simpsons.
It was all downhill after the fourth season, but I kept on for another nineteen. It was enjoyable in a masochistic way. But there comes a time when you have to shake off the self-pity and pick up the pins.”

I blink. The inspiring, motivational speech I’m all prepared to dismiss doesn’t mention pins. “Huh?”

He takes the six colored markers out of their plastic case. “There are times when growling just doesn’t cut it and you need something stronger like a voodoo-ery. Or, er, voodoo-torium. Since one doesn’t exist, I had to create my own. Herewith, everything you need to distill evil spirits and make yourself feel better.”

Simon hands me one creepy white doll and watches me with an air of expectation. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

“Here”—he holds out an orange marker—“start with Lloyd Chancellor. Draw his hair.”

Slowly at first and with growing enthusiasm, I color in his wild curling red hair. Then I add his bright green eyes and sooty lashes. I save his thick lips for last.

Simon looks over my shoulder. “Oh, no, much thicker than that.”

I double the width of his lips and hold the doll up for inspection. It looks like a nursery school portrait. It could be Lloyd. It could be Simon. It could even be me.

“Not bad for a first effort. Now for the fun part.” He shakes a plastic box of sewing pins and opens it.

I stare at them warily. Poking needles into Lloyd Chancellor hardly seems like the mature way to handle my grief.

“Trust me,” he says coaxingly. “It’s juvenile but cathartic.”

I grab one with an orange ball to match Lloyd’s hair and press it against the heart. It goes through the foam in one easy, gliding motion.

“How’d that feel?” he asks.

I take a deep breath and let it out. I’m a terrible human being. “Good.”

He shakes the box again. “Ready for another one?”

Nodding eagerly, I stick the pin through the middle of his forehead. It looks like a bindi. I put the next one in his kidney and the fourth in his spleen. Or where I think the spleen should be.

When I reach for a fifth pin, Simon stops me. “Uh-uh. Four’s the limit. Just in case.”

I stare at him in surprise. “Just in case what?”

He shrugs. “It’s not just a bunch of hocus-pocus.”

I find his superstitiousness adorable. “All right.”

“So who do you want to do next?”

“Nadia. She never returns my calls.”

“Excellent.”

After Nadia, I make effigies of Tom Tipston and Allan Field, the supposedly superhot scribes who get half a million dollars to write shitty scripts nobody wants to produce. Angriest at them, I insert a needle into their brain with deliberate slowness, pinning them together at the point of their most useless organ. I stick the other seven in all their joints so they can’t move.

Simon gives me props for finding a loophole in the four-only rule.

Satisfied, I grin and say thank you. It’s remarkable that something so blatantly juvenile can make you feel so much better.

My stomach growls and for the first time in weeks I’m in the mood for something other than popcorn. I try to imagine what’s in my fridge. Some sour milk, a few potatoes, maybe a carton of eggs. It’s been so long since I’ve looked inside, I’m not really sure.

While I contemplate a potato omelet, Simon hands me one more doll.

I look at it in its blank face. “What’s this for?”

“Esther Rogers, the new CEO of Arcadia who killed
Jarndyce,
” he says. “You’re not alone. The new regime has been terminating projects right and left. Anything that was set up before they arrived is getting the ax.”

“Really?” I ask, imagining a fleet of devastated novelists holing up with Danielle Steele and PopSecret. We should form a support group. As a public service, we could insert a pamphlet about the dangers of gullibility and stupidity with every option payment and set up an 800 number you can dial whenever you feel a hint of optimism seeping into your pessimism.

“It’s been all over the trades. They claim they’re taking the studio in a fresh, new direction, but it’s really just ego,” he says. “Everything in this business is ego. Once you get that, things make a lot more sense.”

Because I don’t know what Esther Rogers looks like, I start with her mouth. I assume it’s red like everyone else’s.

Simon hands me the brown marker. “For her eyes. Her hair is sort of a dignified salt and pepper. I’m not sure how you want to render it, since we don’t have gray.”

I make some black polka dots and leave the rest white. It’s remarkably unattractive, even for a voodoo doll.

“Excellent. You’ve nailed her,” he says.

After I insert the pins, I look at him expectantly. “What comes after voodoo therapy?”

“Well, I renounced the movie industry and got a job with RentLA.com.”

I laugh. “Hmm. That sounds like step twenty-seven. What’s step two?”

He thinks for a moment. “You go to the Dresden and get really greasy burgers.”

On paper it sounds like a good plan, especially considering how poorly I make omelets, but the thought of stepping into the big wide world where I’m nothing but an unemployed paralegal is too daunting. The second I pass through my front door my demoted status becomes permanent. Here in my apartment reality is deferred. In the smog-ridden outside it’s a fixed constant.

“OK, step one and a half,” I say.

“We order in from Simply Thai?” he offers.

I nod. That’s more my speed. “Can we eat in your apartment?” I ask. The hallway isn’t outside, not really. “This place is probably rank. Actually, now that I think about it, so am I. I’m going to hop in the shower first.”

Now Simon opens the windows to let in fresh air. He lines the voodoo dolls along the sill like they’re pretty potted plants. I like the way they look. “Cool. I’ll order. What do you want?”

“Green curry with chicken and spring rolls.”

He commits it to memory. “Come by whenever you’re ready.”

I nod and watch him pack up the markers, overcome with a feeling of gratitude I don’t know how to express. I would still be on the couch developing bed sores if it weren’t for him. “I, uh, you know, thanks,” I say awkwardly.

“Please,” he says with an unself-conscious smile. “I’m a voodoo whore. Any excuse to stick pins in a doll.”

His remarkable graciousness puts me at ease. “Well, regardless, I appreciate the intervention.”

Simon shrugs like it’s nothing and tosses the leftover dolls into the tote bag. Then he bends down to pick up the scattered Amazon boxes, and it occurs to me that he might be the best human being I’ve ever met.

“Absolutely not,” I say, grabbing the boxes from him and pushing him toward the door.

He wraps his hand around the knob, jiggles it for a moment, then turns to me. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“I know,” I say softly. Whatever he might have expected to happen, he hoped it wouldn’t. I get that now. He wanted to save me from this. But of course nothing could save me from this, not even a ream of pamphlets.

He nods once and opens the door. The hallway is silent and we both hear my stomach rumble loudly. I laugh with embarrassment, he with pure amusement.

“Maybe I should go order the food,” he says.

I smile. “Maybe.”

“See you in a bit.”

“Yes,” I say, closing the door.

It’s almost entirely shut when he pushes it open again. “Oh, and call your sister.”

Yep, it’s official. The best human being I’ve ever met.